In an extraordinary abuse of power by a democratic government, independent economists have been forced to stop publishing their own estimates of inflation by fines and threats of prosecution. Misreported prices have cheated holders of inflation-linked bonds out of billions of dollars.

The congressmen customarily release the monthly report, produced by anonymous economists, to shield the experts from prosecution by the government. President Cristina Kirchner has levied fines and criminal charges against a number of the economists, accusing them of releasing deceptive inflation reports.

Bevacqua was director of Argentina's Consumer Price Index (INDEC) at the National Statistics Institute in Buenos Aires until she was fired for refusing to go along with such deceptions. Worse, she was then fined 500,000 Pesos – around $125,000 – as were other independent economists and statisticians - and criminal prosecutions were begun against her and others.

Yes, the Argentine government is muzzling free speech so they can tell big lies. Certain commenters from Latin America (really guys, using a British last name doesn't deceive me) keep telling me how great are certain left-leaning Latin American governments for resisting heinous international capitalists and making great socialist progress. Ha! I'm not going to wear rose colored glasses when I look at Latin America any more than I will when I look at Washington DC and the financiers of Wall Street.

Look, even Elizabeth Warren doesn't dare tell it like it is when it comes to inflation even after laying out an air-tight case that families, looked at as a business unit, have been on a downward slope of economic viability since the early 1970s. She says in the linked video her figures are "all adjusted for inflation". What??? How can it be that we end up with an inflation index that doesn't take into account the cost of maintaining the most fundamental business unit of all: The family?

I'll tell you how: Instead of heavy-handed laws censoring economists we have developed a far more sophisticated means of hobbling the social sciences through control of the channels for funding of those sciences, including economics, which is largely funded by the Microsoft of economics: The Federal Reserve via its MS-DOS of money: the Federal Reserve Note.

They'll never fund the study the economic impact of changing the tax base from economic activity to taxing liquid value of assets -- because liquid value of assets are driven by the network effect and that is even more sacred to the Federal Reserve than it was to Gates, Ballmer and Allen after IBM deployed their POS.

Randall, the truth is ALL governments lie ALL of the time. I'm surprised you haven't learn't this fundamental, universal truism by now. Move on, nothing interesting here.
Just look at how the US government lies and deceives over unemployment definitions over the years. Or how the number of illegal immigrants has magically stalled at 12 million for two decades. Etc etc etc.
Probably the worst and most tyrannical penalty on free speech comes form the 'mother of democracy', Englland, where you can be summarily slung into jail for writing 'rude' words on private twitter messages.
Needless to say the 'rude' words are the same ones 'nice' Americans won't utter in the same manner as YHWH.

"In an extraordinary abuse of power by a democratic government, independent economists have been forced to stop publishing their own estimates . . ."

Bad as opposed to what . . . the way virtually every "democratic" government in the West puts its natives in jail for giving a negative opinion about "diversity", no matter how well backed up by the facts? Jailings that The Economist goes along with. Jailings hell, RAPE, MAIMING, and MURDER, all of which the Economist is happy to turn a blind eye to, and happy to turn a blind eye to government suppression of stats for those particular crimes. For that matter, how well does The Economist cover the economic impact of "diversity", and the British government's propaganda on it? The mote in your own eye.

Yes, governments lie all the time. Of course. But prosecuting economists and reporters for being honest is far less common, at least in what are nomimally countries that see themselves as part of Western Civilization.

Rude words: Bad. But it is much worse to not even be able to discuss evidence. We can still discuss evidence in America.

CG,

The Brits need the 1st Amendment. I do not know how long it will last in the United States. I will certainly mourn its passing when that day comes.

Censorship has traditionally been a part of Western Civilization. It's clear that the decline of traditional censorship has correlated with the decline of Western Civilization. The decline of traditional censorship has allowed a class of people to dominate the media and engage in deception and manipulation in the name of anti-censorship and "free speech".

What governments lie about is what matters. Argentina has a succession of governments that do damage to its economy. This government is debasing its currency just as many before have done. So nothing has been learned. Plus, they aren't just lying about the damage they are doing. They are suppressing free speech by those who say they are lying about it.

"The Brits need the 1st Amendment. I do not know how long it will last in the United States. I will certainly mourn its passing when that day comes."

I would welcome the abolishment of the First Amendment. I genuinely would. At least then the mask would be off the beast. Nothing would be better for the truth than for it to be officially outlawed.

I would love for Congress to pass a law that makes it illegal to say that there are innate differences in the cognitive averages for various racial groups. In fact, the more specific the law, the better. If you put a few scientists and economists in jail for their data, that would be terrific.

I think everyone in Argentina is in general agreement that the government is lying to them.

Somehow, America is in some awful twilight zone at the moment, where awareness of realities is at a low point. Official bans on speech are clumsy and clownish. We have something far worse, with a regime of unofficial and massive censorship and narrative retelling in the official press. This is much worse. Some clunky government agency couldn't keep track of or control the narrative the way 100,000 committed leftists across media and in the universities are able to.

For instance you are 74x as likely to get into the New York Times wedding section if you are gay, and it is similar for most newspapers now. Lo and behold, after 15 years of this propaganda everyone thinks that gay 'marriage' which never existed in the whole history of the world until recently, is the most normal thing in the world.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2011/12/odds-getting-new-york-times-wedding-section/45440/

Simple selection of stories by the media is far more powerful than any government censorship could be.